The DSPT College of Fellows
Modeling how to put faith into action
The College of Fellows was established to help students apply the philosophical and theological tradition to concrete challenges facing the contemporary world. They help bridge the gap between classroom and career.
The members of the College of Fellows commit themselves to DSPT because they share our strong conviction that graduate studies in philosophy and theology are essential to addressing the significant concerns of the time.
An education in philosophy and theology is versatile. It develops the critical thinking and effective communication skills that are greatly needed in all areas of the professional world today. These are the skills that can put faith into action and transform the culture.
The Fellows bring high-level expertise from a variety of backgrounds combined with a common interest in engaging their Catholic faith with their work. They provide our students with relevant insights, networking opportunities, and advice for the future.
Annual Convocation of the College of Fellows
The annual Convocation is a conversation in which our Fellows, distinguished lay Catholic men and women, engage topics of significance to the Church and the culture from a wide range of perspectives. They offer insight and suggest questions that must be asked in order to meet the challenges we face today.
2024 - Convocation of the College of Fellows
February 3, 2024
The Church in the modern world…
and in these times
The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (1965) was a somewhat novel kind of constitution, devoted not to doctrine strictly understood, but to a discernment of what had changed in the world, the great vineyard. It was deemed pastoral to denote our understanding of changeable things for the sake of accomplishing Christ’s great commission to his apostles.
Its purpose (not its end or goal) therefore was open-ended, requiring continual discernment of spiritual, moral, political, cultural, and economic challenges faced by men and women in mundo huius temporis. In their own time, the conciliar fathers considered a wide array of factors influencing the hopes and anxieties of the post-war generation, the animorum appetitiones (desires of the soul) that must be understood in time and place.
Sixty years later, we know in the course of lived experience that these hopes and anxieties, and the social relationships for which they once existed, have profoundly changed. So much so that it is not uncommon for us to think that we are living in a very different time, or a different world, so to speak. The challenges of family life, work, political community, human rights, communications, and perhaps most importantly, technological domination of ordinary community life – indeed, even disbelief in the majesty of both God and his created images are in a new phase.
Past convocation topics
- 2020 - Communicating Truth - Evangelization by the Laity
- 2019 - You Too Go Into My Vineyard - A look at the Role of the Laity in the Church
- 2018 - Society and Nature: Engaging the “Integral Ecology” of Laudato Si’
- 2017 - The Stewardship of Knowledge & Evangelization in our Culture: Multi-disciplinary Perspectives
- 2016 - The Synod on the Family: Multi-disciplinary Perspectives from the American Context
- 2015 - “Blessed are you poor…” What Does It Mean to be a Poor Church for the Poor?
- 2014 - What Does It Mean to Think with the Church?
- 2013 - Religious Liberty and Faith in the Public Square and Natural Law and Virtue in Relation to Positive Law and Governance
- 2012 - The New Evangelization in Light of the Lineamenta for the Synod of Bishops
Members of the College
by area of expertise